SavingSeaFood - Delaware Bay fish kill not expected to have impact on bunker populations, official says

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Delaware Bay fish kill not expected to have impact on bunker populations, official says

“Not to trivialize it, but it’s a pretty small amount. Even if one million died that is less than .003 percent of the entire population,” Muffley said

The fish kill that littered Delaware Bay beaches with dead menhaden earlier this week is not expected to have any impact on populations of this important forage fish.

Menhaden, also called bunker, is a key species for larger fish such as striped bass, bluefish and weakfish, which are important to the recreation and commercial fishing industries in southern New Jersey.

At this point many of the dead fish have washed out with the tides and are now feeding blue crabs, another important fishery in the Delaware Bay.

“The gulls and crabs are consuming the bunker,” Frank McCall, Cape May County’s emergency management director, said at a press conference Friday.

Read the complete story from The Press of Atlantic City.

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